"Wake up!" Xanatos urged as Demona opened her eyes and started up in a panic.
"Adelpha!" he said sternly, catching her as she rose up aggressively, as if to attack something only she could see. Holding her down by her shoulders, he said, "It's all right." She looked about in confusion. She was on a sofa in a gathering room near the base of the north tower. Someone had wrapped her in a blanket that was now stained with blood in several places and she ached all over her body.
"But…I fell," she argued, despite the fact that no one had said otherwise.
"Yes, but Owen caught you," Xanatos explained, "Well, sort of. And you kept the Hunter from taking my son."
"Was he killed?" she asked, though her demeaner showed such little concern, one would have thought she was inquiring about the weather.
"The Hunter, or my son?" Xanatos replied and she scoffed at him.
"Your son, of course! Did I drop him when I went unconscious?"
"No," he told her in a relieved voice, "Owen was on the stairs just beneath the parapet and much more effective at catching him than you . He's shaken, but he's all right. The Hunter got away."
"Of course he did," she growled.
"He parachuted somewhere across the river. The cops are after him now, as is half of my security team. If New York's finest can't catch him, my team will and I assure you we will see the end of this! I will not tolerate my home violated and my family threatened!"
She shook her head in frustration.
"I didn't kill him when I had the chance," she growled furiously, then she added with a bit of a sneer, "I suppose Goliath will be pleased with me, at least."
"Is that why you didn't shoot? Here I was, thinking you maybe didn't want to blow away a six-year-old."
She responded with a defensive glare.
"Nonsense. I was confused and experienced a fortuitous moment of weakness."
"Ah. Of course," he replied with a condescending nod, as he took a warm, wet cloth from a bowl on the coffee table and offered it to her so she could wipe the rest of the blood from her face, "And what, precisely, do you believe was the cause of this sudden disorientation?"
She accepted the cloth from him with uncertainty. He observed that she did indeed look confused, and even a bit fearful, as her eyes seemed to attempt to penetrate him.
"Nothing less than the sight of this arrogant, unscrupulous man willingly disarming himself and risking not only his own life, but that of his son to protect my clan. That's what had me baffled. The captain of the guard, who had sworn to be our friend his entire life, abandoned us to be slaughtered under far less of a threat. Macbeth considered betraying us at a mere hypothetical suggestion that doing so might better protect his interests. How do you, a man who can't be bothered with anyone's welfare other than his own, come by the audacity to engage in such acts of heroic virtue?" Xanatos chuckled snidely at her questioning, particularly the way it was delivered with suspicion, outrage, and a complete lack of gratitude.
"Well, I've always had a naturally high level of audacity. It runs in the family. As for the heroic virtue? I'm as surprised as you are. Perhaps I've been inspired by certain heroic companions I've been keeping company with these past five years?"
She gave him a contemptuous scowl.
"Well, they are clearly a bad influence. You'll never live forever, pulling stunts like that!"
"You'd best mind yourself, then," he teased, "Heroic virtue is a highly contagious condition!" She scoffed at him again and rose, pulling the blanket away to reveal that any wounds she had endured from the fall were entirely healed.
"Why do you say 'fortuitous'?" Xanatos asked curiously, as he tossed the blanket in a plastic bag with the blood-soaked washcloth, "I would have thought you'd be thrilled at the chance to kill the Hunter, particularly after such an attack on the castle."
"Oh, I was," she admitted in a dark tone, "I would have relished destroying that murderous waste of life. But that's just the problem. I've killed nearly a score of Hunters. I know by now, there will just be another one. I hate that man. But killing him alone isn't enough to protect my clan, or any of the rest of my kind that may have survived centuries of human treachery and murder. If we're to ever live in peace, I must end this vendetta once and for all."
Xanatos' entire demeanor shifted at the darkness in her voice as she explained herself.
"What is it you intend to do?" he demanded suspiciously, but she merely looked away and would not answer.
Not long after sunset, that same night, Goliath came and found her in her room.
"Well, my eternal enigma," he greeted her with ironic praise, "You've certainly managed to strike fear in your friend, Xanatos!"
"What is this nonsense about a friendship with a man who keeps me locked in a castle so he can conduct mind control experiments on me?" she demanded irritably, "Is there nothing that will quell this vicious rumor?" Goliath smiled at her outrage.
"Well, if disassociating yourself from being his friend is your goal, your actions today certainly didn't help in that regard."
"Actions? More like "failure to act" and I'm becoming increasingly convinced that it didn't help in any regard at all." She excused herself to the other side of the room and leant against a countertop, looking down at the floor sullenly. Goliath followed her, calmly, and approaching her, he placed his claw on her cheek. She didn't pull away, but neither would she allow him to draw her gaze up to meet his own.
"You're wrong. It has helped, and I'm proud of you," he reassured her, "Half the city is looking for Canmore now. He will be captured and brought to justice."
"You say Xanatos is afraid?" she said, quickly changing the subject, "Of what, specifically?"
Goliath sighed.
"You made some statements to him earlier today that left him…alarmed. Something along the lines of 'killing one man won't be enough to save our kind?'" She glanced up at his paraphrasing of her own words. Goliath was worried as well. She could see it in his eyes as he continued, "He seems to believe that you have some sort of mischief in mind and that, along with the fact that you've already managed to break out of the castle once, has him very concerned that you are on the verge of doing something terrible."
"And what do you say?" she asked cautiously. She felt his claw on her shoulder.
"Convince me otherwise," he pleaded gently, "Tell me why you escaped the night of the attacks."
"I will not," she replied.
"Tell me what you meant when you said that to Xanatos."
"I cannot."
Goliath growled deeply in frustration.
"How can I hope to trust you when you won't tell me anything?" he shouted in sudden anger.
"How can I trust you when you are foolish enough to make alliances with the enemy?" she retorted, angrily pushing his arm away from her shoulder.
"What are you talking about?" he demanded, "What enemy?"
"The Hunters. Your dear friend, Detective Maza got very talkative when she was trying to convince me of what a miscreant I was for leaving the castle. She started casting insults at me and the next thing I knew, all sorts of information just fell out of her face!"
"I don't know what she said but-
"Only that I was wrong to consider the Hunters a threat as you have made alliances with two of them and the third is no match for Xanatos' defenses without the other two."
"She was wrong to say that," he began.
"You don't say!" she interrupted sarcastically, "We can all see how well that theory played out!"
"I mean, because it's not even true," he continued, "The two other siblings have made gestures toward helping us at various times. That much is true. But they were all unsolicited and nothing was given or promised on our end. I'm not nearly as great a fool as you'd care to believe." She drew a breath as if to argue that point, but then paused.
"I very much want to believe you," she admitted.
"Believe me. And what else did Elisa say to you that night?"
"She told me that one of the Hunters was paralyzed while protecting you from his brother."
"That is true," he conceded.
"I don't understand," she murmured and she looked so distressed that Goliath felt some pity for her. He reached again, for her shoulders and she allowed him to draw her closer.
"I think," Goliath explained hesitantly, "He simply wanted the feud to end. He was trying to get his brother to stop and he stepped between us. Jason Canmore had no reason to believe that his own brother would risk firing on me with him standing there between us." For a long moment, she didn't reply, and Goliath wondered if this information went so against all her delusions that she was simply unable to process it.
"Do you understand?" he finally asked and she looked up at him.
"I understand, what happened with the Hunters," she told him, "What I don't understand is, Xanatos had every reason to believe that the Hunter would have killed him and his child to get to you and the others. But he still wouldn't open that door to the tower."
To her surprise, he drew her closer still, embracing her with both his powerful arms and wings. She trembled a bit at his closeness, closing her eyes tight and trying to remind her heart that she was fortunate enough that he was willing to consider her part of the clan at all. She fervently hushed the taunting whisper of hope that still lingered inside her.
"I think, perhaps, you do understand, my sister," he whispered as he pressed his face to her hair, "I think you are just not ready to accept what your heart is telling you. What Xanatos' loyalty truly means."
A couple tears streamed down her face and fell on his breast.
"The so-called loyalty of a human means nothing," she insisted defiantly, but Goliath didn't argue and only held her tighter still, until long after her eyes had dried. He sighed, finally pulling away from her, but still holding her by the shoulder.
"I don't want to do this," he began uncomfortably, "But you haven't left me much of a choice. Until further notice, you will be restricted to your rooms from sunrise until sunset. Once, the clan is awake, you will only be allowed in the rest of the castle with an escort."
"I've done nothing!" she protested.
"If you won't tell me what-
"You tell me that you're proud of me one minute and that I'm to be thrown into solitary confinement the next? Are you Xanatos' servant now? Remind me again why I didn't rid myself of both him and the Hunter at once? I can't decide which is the greater nuisance between them!"
She pushed past Goliath and meant to storm away, but he caught her arm and wouldn't let her.
"I understand your anger," he told her gently, "This is not Xanatos' decision. It is mine. I ask you to please remember the promise I made to you. You are not being isolated. You will be with us every night. I promise, I am not abandoning you." She rose her arm as if to strike him in her rage, but froze, as she noticed Owen standing in the doorway.
"Forgive the intrusion," Owen said in his typical, robotic tone.
"This isn't a good time," Goliath snapped.
"I understand, Goliath," Owen continued, "But Hudson is asking for you."
"Tell him, I will be up shortly," Goliath replied with uncharacteristic curtness, but Owen did not budge from the doorway.
"If you please, Goliath. Hudson is asking for both of you, and it seems it is of the utmost urgency."
A few moments later, they found Husdon, laying on the same sofa Xanatos had laid Demona earlier when she was recovering from her encounter with the Hunter. Apparently, that was as far as he'd made it from the tower, before collapsing. The rest of the clan was already gathered around him and they all looked relieved as Goliath arrived.
"Ah, my lad! My lass!" he greeted warmly and wearily, "You're all here with me now. And a greater gift, I couldn't be given."
"Father!" Angela wept, from the side of her mate, "Isn't there anything we can do?"
"Nay, lassie," Hudson struggled for the breath to tell her, "My time has come. No use in fighting it."
"You're not leaving me, Hudson?" Goliath pleaded as he went to his side.
"Aye, in a sense, my son. But in every sense that truly matters, never."
She stayed back in the doorway, watching the rest of the clan say their farewells. Her heart ached for Goliath. She knew all that Hudson was to him. The younger ones had known him and loved him as a wise elder, but she realized that only she shared the memories with Goliath of Hudson's nights as the leader of the clan, of his part in nurturing them and teaching them as hatchlings and youths, and all the trials and hardships he had guided them through.
"Lass?" Hudson called to her, "Will you not come and sit among us?" A bit startled at the invitation, she quickly obeyed and crouched beside Goliath.
"Stay close by his side, lass," he beseeched her, "He'll be needing you dearly, sure enough."
"Need me? What good am I?" she thought out loud.
"May you know the answer to that wee question before too long, my dearest one," he said fondly. It was a blessing and a challenge in one.
After Hudson's passing, one by one, the others silently left the room, until only she and Goliath remained. They remained that way, in silence, for a long time, and from time to time, she glanced up at him, sensing his sorrow and helplessness, and wondering what he could possibly need of her that was within her power to give.
"We were all a bit envious of you," she whispered, "He loved you so much. He always tried not to show favoritism, but it was obvious to everyone that you were his best and dearest." His face remained withdrawn and she touched his arm firmly.
"It wasn't an easy role, filling such high expectations, but you were more than equal to it. You always made him proud." His face came to life and he glanced at her so suddenly, it caused her to look away nervously. He put his claw to his own face, as if to wipe away the stress, or maybe the salt from his tears. When he spoke, his voice sounded so weary to her.
"Can you remember the words?" he asked her.
"The words?"
"For the rituals. I can't remember the right words. Can you?"
"Not really," she admitted, her face openly displaying her disappointment in herself for neglecting something so important, "For all the cleverness I thought I had as a youth, I never troubled myself with paying attention to the rituals. I could memorize anything I read in the Archmage's books with no effort, but the wisdom of our ancestors was never exciting enough for me. Tending to the dead was supposed to be the work of the elders. I…I never expected to wake up one night as an orphan."
Goliath nodded his understanding and lost himself in thought again, but he was quickly drawn back out of it as he noticed that she had begun to weep. Gently, he placed his claw on the back of her head, to comfort her, but her weeping grew more and more intense until she had sunk down to the floor and was trembling violently as she sobbed. Caught off guard by this sudden and uncharacteristic display of emotion, Goliath didn't quite know what to say or do. But he embraced her tightly for the second time that night.
"I couldn't do the rituals for our brethren either, because I didn't know the words," she confessed in between sobs, "It was the only thing left that I could do for them. I truly wanted to. But I couldn't remember, and I was completely alone. I moved their remains to one of the sea caves, to protect them. I thought if I found another clan, I could someday bring an elder there and do the rituals for my poor brothers and sisters, my elders and my children, but I never did. I could never find the courage to return. I just left them there. Even in that one, small thing, I failed them."
Goliath was weeping now as well. There were any number of things he thought of saying to comfort her in her pain, but ultimately, he simply held her close as she wept. After a long time, she finally spoke again.
"I'm sorry. I wish it was different. I wish we could do the rituals properly for Hudson, the way he deserved."
"But we will," Goliath reassured her, "We'll recreate the parts we can remember, and create our own for the rest. Think of how our lives are different now. Of course, our rituals can change and we'll find a new way to honor Hudson. Will you help me?"
"Of course I will," was her reply, and they helped one another from the floor.
"Come," he said, "Let us go and gather the others so they can help as well."